Central Contra Costa Sanitary District v. Superior Court

Opinion

RACANELLI, P. J.

We issued an alternative writ of mandate to review the propriety of the trial court’s order denying petitioner’s motion for a change of venue under the relevant provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 394, subdivision (1). We conclude that the trial court erred in failing to grant the motion changing the place for trial to a neutral county.

Facts

The record reveals the following undisputed allegations of fact: Fred J. Early, Jr., Company, Inc., real party in interest, a corporation having its principal place of business in San Francisco, brought an action for damages against petitioner Central Contra Costa Sanitary District (District) as owner and codefendant Bechtel, Inc., a corporation, as design engineer and administrator of a certain sewage treatment construction project in Contra Costa County. District is wholly situated in Contra Costa County; codefendant Bechtel has its principal place of business in San Francisco County. District contended below, as it does here, that the trial court had a mandatory duty to grant its venue motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 394, subdivision (1), which provides in pertinent part as follows: “. . . Whenever an action or proceeding is brought . . . against a . . . local agency, ... in any county . . . other than that in which the defendant is situated, the action or proceeding

must

be, on motion of the said defendant, transferred for trial to a county, or city and county, other than that in which the plaintiff, or any of the plaintiffs, resides, or is doing business, or is situated, and other than the . . . county in which such defendant . . . local agency is situated.” (Italics added.) Real party in interest, in resisting the motion, argued that section 394 is inapplicable when a defendant local agency is joined with a codefendant in a suit filed in the latter’s county of residence, trial venue being

[705]

governed by the provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 395, subdivision (a).

1

The same argument is renewed in these proceedings.